Some contributions of the SEA method to interpret GPR signals

BONOMO, NÉSTOR; CEDRINA, L.; OSELLA, ANA

Foz de Iguassu

Congreso; The meeting of the Americas; 2010

Concentration of the transmitted energy on the targets of interest through the use of arrays of emitters is rather frequent in seismic investigation to resolve geological structures. Recently, we have been implementing this kind of methodology in the ground penetrating radar (GPR) area to study shallow structures. In particular, we have applied the Synthetic Emitter Array (SEA) method to different natural and cultural targets, including geological strata and archaeological objects, with successful results. In the SEA method, the directivity of the transmitted field is increased by superimposing a number of individual records that are obtained with single source and emitter and variable offset along the profile line. As a consequence of increasing the directivity, the amplitudes at the target positions are increased and the influence of the surrounding reflectors reduced. In this work we show the abilities of the SEA method to improve low and partially superimposing GPR signals. In many cases these signals cannot be distinguished from a simple single-offset methodology. We analyze the time and amplitude fluctuations of the signals and their intensity levels with respect to the surrounding signals, showing how the continuity and relative amplitudes of the signals of interest are improved (see, for example, Figure 1).